Your suggestion that the purchase of a sports car is immoral gets nothing more than an eye roll. So move along and feel superior. — Hanover
I don't know if you're being deliberately polemic, but I don't understand your argument at all. You seem to be saying that because all our purchasing choices involve some degree of unnecessary resource use we should abandon all attempts to limit their impact. All wars kill people so should be we abandon any attempt to minimise wars? All our actions have impacts, no matter how small. Moral consideration is about minimising those impacts, we don't abandon the project just because we can't eliminate them altogether. — Pseudonym
As to me, the computer is second hand, it's powered by electricity from renewable sources and purchased from my earnings which I maintain at or below the global average. — Pseudonym
I'm saying that the purchase and use of a sports car is within the acceptable limits of resource use — Hanover
what we have here is a sidetracking of a conversation where Sam wanted advice on the best car to get and you decided a good lecture was in order. — Hanover
While you might feel your resources are limited compared to those closest to you, the truth is that you're fabulously wealthy, with your carbon footprint greatly exceeding the Congolese. It's disgusting really how you flaunt your wealth and burn the resources that the bushmen would never think to destroy. — Hanover
I doubt the average person globally owns a computer. — Hanover
In fact, it's not even clear that electric cars are any better for the environment than gas powered ones. — Hanover
By what standards? Many well respected ethicists and even quite a few economists would disagree with you. You can't have a concept of 'acceptable resource use' without 'unacceptable resource use' so what would be unacceptable and why? — Pseudonym
If he honestly expected an uncritical conversation about the merits of different sports cars from a community of philosophers I can only imagine he's never met a philosopher. — Pseudonym
As I said, I'm not an idiot I'm hardly going to start critiquing other people's morality without ensuring I've met those standards myself. — Pseudonym
As Parfait points out, we cannot just keep giving all the while there exists someone less well off than ourselves otherwise we will end up in a perpetual cycle of giving. We would eventually end up the one who was worst off, someone would have to give to use, who would then be the worst off, and so on.
Parfit, and dozens of ethicists after him, recognised that the only logical way out of this is to focus not on relative poverty, but on equality. That's why I ensure my income (and therefore expenditure) is no greater than the average (in price equivalent dollars, according to the World Bank figures). That way I'm not using more than my fair share of the world's resources as measured by their economic value. To go any further would enter Parfit's cycle of giving. — Pseudonym
To be in the upper 1% of income globally, you'd need to make $34,000 per year.Apparently the average person is a 28 year old Han Chinese man, is right-handed, makes less than $12,000 per year, and has a mobile phone but no bank account. It doesn't say, but I suspect he owns a computer.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1362709/Typical-human-face-28-year-old-Chinese-man.html
Edit: Although it looks like it uses the mode rather than the mean. — Michael
Cradle-to-grave, electric cars are better for the environment in most places in the world depending on the power plant generating the electricity and further improving due to development in battery efficiency. — Benkei
38% of the households in the world own a computer. http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/03/19/internet-seen-as-positive-influence-on-education-but-negative-influence-on-morality-in-emerging-and-developing-nations/technology-report-15/ — Hanover
To be in the upper 1% of income globally, you'd need to make $34,000 per year.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2082385/We-1--You-need-34k-income-global-elite--half-worlds-richest-live-U-S.html — Hanover
Brilliant, I didn't think philosophy was that easy... All those wasted years. All right here goes.
I do think Sam's car purchase would have a measurable impact.
I think if you were hypocritical that would make you wrong.
I think egalitarianism as a solution to poverty is logical.
I don't think the cure for poverty is for the wealthy to get more wealthy.
I think an egalitarian stopping point isn't arbitrary.
I don't think it would be fine if people gave until they were completely impoverished I think it would be silly.
(I don't refuse work, I give my excess to charity, usually Survival International, to help those Congolese bushman you're so fond of)
And I think Sam shouldn't buy another car.
You're right it's so much easier without having to bother presenting any logical arguments. — Pseudonym
We can fairly conclude that whether or not buying an EV is an environmentally friendly decision depends on where you are in the world, and how sustainable power is there.
1. What is the measurement of Sam's vehicle purchase. How much more carbon emissions do you expect and what impact do you think it will have? — Hanover
2. It is a logical fallacy to attack the speaker's hypocrisy as a basis that their position is incorrect. — Hanover
3. Granting everyone equal rights (egalitarianism) will not eliminate poverty. Not everyone owes their poverty to not having equal rights. — Hanover
4. This is a strawman. I didn't say allowing the wealthy the ability to get wealthier would cure poverty. I presented the tautology that poverty is cured with wealth. — Hanover
5. An egalitarian stopping point is how you intend to define when you should stop giving, suggesting that when you've reached the arbitrary mean, you've given enough. I'm not judging your generosity, but I see that as no more or less arbitrary than tithing 10%. — Hanover
6. Some people do give to the point of poverty, with some taking a vow of poverty. That you think it's silly isn't based upon any philosophical basis. It's just you disagree. I have no problem with people giving whatever they want. — Hanover
7. I don't care how you give, but it's good you do. — Hanover
What can I say, I just like sports cars, always have. Some people like large homes, I could care less about having a large home. By the way, my body is full of tattoos. I have one of Wittgenstein on my chest. :-} I'm not into fancy clothes, not into having expensive watches, I just like sports cars. Can't I have one vice, please? I'm not rich, nor am I married, I just have a little extra money to spend. Why not have a little fun. Beside I'm 67, who knows how much time I have left. — Sam26
I don't even drive that fast, at most I'll drive 150 in a 30 mph school zone, but that's it; and I do it on Sundays while texting. — Sam26
Ya, if you've ever been in an accident that will cure you of sports cars. I've seen some bad accidents, but was never involved in one. My best friend, who loved sports cars, always said he would die before he was 21, but that if he died he wanted to die in his car. Well, he wasn't in it, but under it, it fell on him. He was 20 when he died. I was in Marines at the time, just left Vietnam, when I got the news. It's a crazy world, I go to Vietnam and survive, he dies under his car in his driveway. — Sam26
It reaches 0–30 mph (0–48 km/h) in 1.0 second, 0–60 mph (0–97 km/h) in 2.3 seconds (2.0s with a rollout), 0–100 mph (0–161 km/h) in 5.1 seconds, and the quarter mile (400 m) in only 9.65 seconds at 140.09 mph (225.45 km/h).[54] This makes the Demon the fastest non-electric production car to reach 0-60 mph (0–100 km/h) and to complete a straight-line quarter mile at its time of announcement. The SRT Demon is also capable of accelerating at 1.8 G's of force at launch, making this the hardest launching production car ever.[55] The Demon can also push the boost to 14.5 psi and redline up to 6500 rpm. With this extreme power, and hard accelerating, the SRT Demon is the first production car to ever perform a wheelie.
Well, this is a philosophy forum...Good god, I just wanted to talk sports cars. If you want to talk ethics, start up a thread on the ethics of sports cars. I was using this thread to escape some of the philosophy for a minute. — Sam26
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